Upstairs at 83 Hester is a weekly children’s art program that takes a process-oriented approach to art making. The classes introduce participants to ways of seeing, sensing, thinking, and making that are explored through the arts. Together we will collaborate on projects, encounter works by contemporary artists, and learn new vocabularies. Guest artists whose work relates to our course theme will visit to co-teach lessons.
What Motivates Us
Our program is motivated by reflection on our experiences as artists, art students, and art teachers. When we were kids we were taught that art was painting, drawing, and sculpture but it’s evident that art doesn’t only exist in these traditional mediums. Over the past century art has expanded its reach across disciplinary boundaries and materials, creating a situation in which artists often find themselves working in a wide variety of mediums and contexts in order to follow the path of an investigation. At the same time we feel that children's arts education can and should extend beyond the limits of the production-consumption cycle in order to take into account all varieties of aesthetic experience.
In keeping with this, our sessions are primarily process oriented and seek to playfully explore the space of the intertwining of receptivity and creativity that makes up an artistic practice. As a guiding principle we feel that it is important for art educators to pay attention to the total art learning context. We are building a program that considers the fact that the room we sit in, the people we talk to, and the materials we use all in their own ways have an influence on our artistic process.
Upstairs is one of the many projects that are part of CAGE - www.cage83.com
Cage is a conglomeration of collective and individualized projects. These projects have a variety of manifestations, from lectures, performances, meetings and children's art sessions. Cage's location at 83 Hester Street is the physical component to a series of social interactions between individuals in and outside of the artist's role in which anonymity and publicity are in constant negotiation.
BIOS:
Cage is a conglomeration of collective and individualized projects. These projects have a variety of manifestations, from lectures, performances, meetings and children's art sessions. Cage's location at 83 Hester Street is the physical component to a series of social interactions between individuals in and outside of the artist's role in which anonymity and publicity are in constant negotiation.
BIOS:
